


The Welcoming Feast

by Titti



Series: Christmas Challenges 2020 [21]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Afterlife, Challenge Response, Happy Ending, In the Veil, Limbo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28198587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Titti/pseuds/Titti
Summary: Severus opened his eyes and he was suddenly inside Grimmauld Place.  His hand flew to his neck.  He remembered Nagini biting him, Potter coming to him and then he closed his eyes, expecting death, but instead he was back here.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Severus Snape
Series: Christmas Challenges 2020 [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064171
Comments: 12
Kudos: 112





	The Welcoming Feast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [digthewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/digthewriter/gifts), [a_belladonna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_belladonna/gifts).



> Written For:  
> newyearcntdown at LJ/DW - Prompt: Welcoming  
> adventdrabbles at LJ/DW - Prompt: Haunted Christmas - I won't even pretend that this is a short story, but there's a line in the story that talked about a Haunted Christmas so I couldn't help myself.
> 
> Dig and a_belladonna, do you know how these were going to be short ficlets? Well, this turned out to be not so short, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Severus opened his eyes and he was suddenly inside Grimmauld Place. His hand flew to his neck. He remembered Nagini biting him, Potter coming to him and then he closed his eyes, expecting death, but instead he was back here. "Albus?"

Why was he calling him? That was stupid. Albus was dead, he had killed him a year ago, but there was a certain fog in his head. Maybe he was weak from the blood loss. Had Potter managed to save him? He didn't think the boy was smart enough, but he had pulled miracles before.

He walked down the stairs to the kitchen and sighed when he saw the man sitting there with a cup of tea in front of him. "Black? What are you doing here?"

Sirius looked up and shook his head. "Of course, it had to be you."

"Answer the bloody question! You're supposed to be dead," Severus snapped out.

"And so are you. I know your small brain might make this difficult to understand, but-"

"It makes sense," Severus said. A part of him had known from the moment he stepped into this house. He wasn't sure how he knew, but it explained his lack of reaction to Black's presence. "I didn't think Potter was smart enough to save me." He ignored the protests from Sirius. "What doesn't make sense is why I'm here. We're not ghosts, and if we were, we'd see people. People would have seen you."

"I figured I'm in hell," Sirius said. "I'm stuck here, day after day, with only my mother's portrait."

Severus shook his head. "That makes no sense. If we were in hell, we'd be in some sort of pain. As much as you annoy me, this barely rises to the level of excruciating pain mere mortals can inflict. Trust me, I know what the Dark Lord can do. Hell would be much worse. No, you're just an irritation."

"The tea is lukewarm. I _hate_ lukewarm tea," Sirius said in proof of his theory.

Severus snorted. "Again, hardly the worst pain you'll ever feel. Was this house here when you got here? Think back, that one moment you found yourself alone, were you here?"

"Are you really trying to figure out the afterlife, Snivellus?" Sirius asked, but when the other man kept staring he thought back. "No, there was nothing. For the first few days, I think. Time is senseless when there's no day or night, no one around, nothing to do. It just appeared after a while, the house I mean. I figured this has to be hell, because if it was heaven, it wouldn't be so depressing."

"People always talk about heaven and hell, but forget that there's another place: purgatory." Severus keeps looking around, touching everything, testing their solidity. "It makes sense. You're a terrible bastard, but really didn't have much time to do any harm. So neither good nor bad."

"And you're a terrible bastard who did plenty of harm," Sirius answered.

"True, but I also did good-"

"That's bullshit. What have you done?" Sirius asked.

"Oh, I don't know, telling Albus about the fact that the Dark Lord was going after Lily so he could protect her. Lot of good that did, thanks to you. I protected Potter. I've been fighting to bring the Dark Lord down." Severus crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "What exactly have _you_ done? Besides hiding in this house? Even now that we're in the afterlife, you choose to hide here."

Sirius lost his calm, standing up violently enough for the cup to tilt and the tea to spill. "I haven't chosen to be here."

"Of course you have. You said it yourself that when you arrived there was nothing. You figured that this was your hell, so you came up with what you consider hell. Although one would think that Azkaban would be worse. You mentioned your mother, but she didn't scream when I arrived, probably because she's in your head. This house is your doing. Now we need to figure out what to do next," Severus said.

"Why are you being so … reasonable?" Sirius asked.

"Because one of us has to think and you are incapable of rational thought. If you were, your life would have been a lot different," Severus answered. "And since the only way to get rid of you is to find whatever we must do in purgatory, I'm being reasonable."

"So it's like a test? I hate tests," Sirius said.

"Not really, purgatory is a place you stay before you move to heaven. There are different theories. Some says it doesn't exist, although we've proven that they are wrong. Traditional Catholic doctrine says that in purgatory you suffer pain similar to hell to achieve expiatory purification and then you move on. Others feel that it's this in between places where you have the opportunity to undo some of the damage you have done. If you undo enough damage, then the scale tips toward heaven. If not, you go to hell," Severus explained.

"How the fuck did you know that? Why didn't anyone tell me that?" Sirius asked.

"Boy I knew was Catholic. I went to Church with him a few times." He didn't mention that it was a lot more than a few times, since it was the best way to avoid his father and his Sunday hangovers.

"So 'oh wise one', how do we undo the damage when we're stuck inside this house by ourselves? There's no one outside. I wouldn't have come up with _this_ if I'd met people," Sirius pointed out.

"Have you tried leaving?" Severus asked, the same way he asked his first years whether they had any common sense, since he already knew the answer.

Sirius frowned. "Well… no, but I didn't feel the need."

"Circe's tits, you've been here for two bloody years, Black. I can't believe that you sat there, drinking a tea you don't like for two whole years. You can continue to do so, but I plan to find out what we need to do to go to heaven," Severus said. "Now, you can stay here or you can follow me upstairs."

"Is it been two years? It's all very… foggy here," Sirius said, frowning. "How is Harry? Remus?"

"Potter was off to fight the Dark Lord. If Albus is- was correct, he'll die killing him-"

"That's not right. Dumbledore would never-"

Severus glared at the other man. "Albus has known all along that the boy must die to finally vanquish the Dark Lord. We've had more than one argument about it, but he's Albus Dumbledore and I'm not. What he says, people do." He was just as guilty, killing them man because he'd been told. "Lupin is married with Tonks and she just gave birth to a child, Edward Lupin. Now, if you want to know more, it'll will have to wait until I look around."

They managed to leave the house, but when they stepped outside the door, they didn't find the streets of London, but nothing. Try as they might, no other buildings appeared. Severus even tried to think about his home in Spinner's End, but nothing happened. He didn't know how long they tried for, time really being different here, but eventually they gave up.

The screeching was immediate as they stepped inside and Severus glared at Sirius. "Stop that! You are doing this. Why in Merlin's name would you be thinking of her? She's probably rotting in hell."

"With the rest of my family," Sirius muttered.

"Not all of them. I'd like to think that Regulus isn't there," Severus said.

Sirius snorted. "He was a Death Eater."

"He was the one that tried to stop the Dark Lord." He wasn't sure, but he'd pieced things together after knowing about the horcruxes. "In the end, he was more selfless than you. He did it because it was the right thing to do. You've always fought to help your friends or get revenge." He knew that he was talking about Regulus, because if he didn't, he'd have to accept that they were stuck here with no direction.

"So what do we do now?" Sirius said, as if reading his thoughts.

"Let's start with making some decent tea and then we go from there."

***

The tea didn't help, either that day or the next. They spent a week reading through the books they found but none of them helped. In fact, they were clearly books taken from Sirius' memory, mostly text books and a few novels.

A week became two, and they settled into a routine. It was illogical to say the least. They didn't need sleep or food or anything that a mortal needed, but they still went to sleep at a certain time, woke up, cooked, ate, showered. By week three, Severus decided that they needed more. They couldn't possibly just go on like this. 

They began restructuring the house. Severus didn't know how it happened. Neither of them certainly knew how to fix a house, they had no supplies and he didn't think that magic worked quite the same way, but on some occasions supplies appeared out of thin air, other times, a room would change as if they had worked on it.

The arguments continued, but with each passing day, they were less and less. It was hard to fight when they were the only ones here, when their posturing meant nothing and refusing to talk to the other meant cutting off all source of conversation.

"How long do you think it's passed?" Sirius asked one evening as they sat in the drawing room, listening to some music on the gramophone.

"I don't think; I know. I've been circling the day in a calendar," Severus said.

"You have a calendar?" Sirius asked with a frown.

"No, but apparently Regulus had one. It's from 1979, but I know the day I died, and I've been checking off, each passing day. Today is Potter's birthday." He knew the date better that he'd like. He had always resented not being able to see Lily after the birth. 

"Almost three months then," Sirius said. "And the only thing we've managed to do is fixed two floors of the house. Do you think we have to fix all of it? There's four more floors."

"I don't think so," Severus said. "Maybe it has to do with you coming to terms with your family? But that doesn't explain why I've been pulled into this house. Why not my house? Why not Hogwarts since it's the one place that is common to both of us, and why are you laughing at me?"

Sirius shook his head. "I'm not. First, I'm smiling and not laughing, and second I'm not laughing at you. When you start thinking about theories, you sound like such a Ravenclaw. Remus used to be like that. It's… not something that I associate with you."

"That's because you have no idea who I am," Severus answered. "You never cared to know. You hated me from the first moment you saw me."

Sirius opened his mouth and then closed it again. "I did. Looking back, it's so stupid. I overheard you say how much you wanted to be in Slytherin and that every other house was inferior, while I knew that Slytherin was evil, because my family was. I couldn't understand why anyone who didn't have family ties to the house would want to be there."

"Did it ever occur to you that I did have family ties?" Severus asked as he shifted to look at Sirius. "My mother was a Slytherin."

Sirius frowned. "Was she? What's her name?"

"Eileen Prince," Severus said softly.

"Really? I didn't know," he said. "How did I never know this?"

"Because her family cut ties with her when she married a Muggle. We were never invited to any family affairs," Severus admitted.

Sirius seemed even more confused by the answer. "I don't get it. Your father was a Muggle and you joined You-Know-Who against Muggles. Why?" 

"I hated my father. He was a Muggle and I hated all like him," Severus answered.

Sirius sighed. "Now _that_ I understand completely."

***

With time, they found that there were plenty of things that they understood about the other. While they were very different people, Sirius the extrovert and Severus the introvert, the learned how their families put them in the path they were in, long before they were mature enough to understand the ramifications. They learned that they both enjoyed classical music, although Sirius pretended not to. They learned how they both enjoyed the telly, but Sirius could never sit long enough to read a book (although he was fine if Severus read it). When they discovered that fact, sometimes in mid-September, a TV appeared in the drawing room.

"Do you reckon that it's possible to time travel?" Sirius asked on a Sunday evening. 

Severus raised an eyebrow. "Inside a blue police box that's bigger on the inside? Highly doubtful."

"No, I mean in general. Do you think that if we do whatever we do, we can go back in time and fix the mistakes we made?" Sirius asked.

Severus shook his head. "Highly doubtful. We'd be changing too much. We're not even sure what happened after I died. What if we change things and screw things up more? No, I think we'll just move on."

"I never really lived, did I?" Sirius said after a moment. "First school, then Azkaban, then this house. There were some brief moments, but I never really _did_ anything."

"Sometimes I feel the same, always stuck at Hogwarts. The only thing that kept me going was making sure that Potter survived." He didn't even know if he'd accomplished that.

"Did you really try to protect Lily?" Sirius asked.

Severus nodded. "I still loved her. I will always love her. She was my best friend, my _only_ friend for so long. I had to do something. I'll admit that I would have happily let her husband die. I hated him for taking her away from me."

"She wasn't yours to take away," Sirius pointed out.

"I know, but she was my only friend. Oh, I knew plenty of people in Slytherins, but they were never my friends. They needed my talents. I was always the poor half-blood, socially beneath them. Your brother was the only one who never really treated me that way." Severus chuckled. "Everyone was beneath Regulus, therefore I was no different than anyone else."

"He was a snotty kid," Sirius said, but instead of the usual anger, Severus could hear the affection there. "I thought he had died fighting one of us. I was afraid that I might have- I'd like to think that I'd have known him, but there was always that doubt. I wish I had known earlier what he'd done."

"What difference would have made? He was still dead and you were still in Azkaban." Knowledge meant little when someone died. 

"I don't know. Maybe I'd have questioned by beliefs. I trusted Dumbledore completely and you tell me that he's been raising Harry to die. I trusted Peter with my life and never trusted you, even after Dumbledore said otherwise. I didn't trust Remus," he added with a whisper.

"I don't know why. The man is a martyr or an idiot, possibly both. I don't even know how he forgave you after what you did. If Potter hadn't used his life debt to keep me from telling everyone he was a werewolf, he'd have been killed. Hell, if Potter hadn't stepped in, he would have been killed. He got lucky, but you never thought-"

"About anything," Sirius said. "I didn't want you dead. I didn't want him dead. I was so bloody stupid. You were saying that he was a werewolf, and I got angry and I- I don't know what I thought it'd happen. That you'd get scared? That… I don't even know." He turned his head to look at Severus. "Twenty years too late, but I am sorry."

"Thank you," he whispered softly. 

***

The apology seemed to drain much of the tension in the house. They continued their routine, no closer to figuring out what they were meant to do. By end of October, the house was completely redone, except for Regulus' room. Sirius decided that it was perfect the way it was.

"We need to find something else to do or we'll go nuts," Sirius said.

"I agree. I think we should try and go out again. We _can't_ be stuck in this house forever. It makes no sense under any theory of what purgatory is," Severus said.

"We don't even know that we are in purgatory," Sirius pointed out. "You just like that theory, because it ends with us going to heaven. You're being, dare I say it, optimistic."

Severus snorted. "I'm being logical. No one can think that you are the worst pain they can inflict on me. My father was a lot more creative, even more so than the Dark Lord."

"I'm so-"

"End that sentence and I'll hex you," Severus said.

"No, you won't, because you know that I didn't have any better. You have to train the heir properly. Curses are the perfect way to discipline him," Sirius said.

"Speaking of discipline, something has changed. Your mother's portrait has disappeared. We are making some difference. Let's see if we can go out," Severus insisted.

Sirius wasn't convinced by what sounded like hopeful thinking. "And where would we even go? There's no one to see, nothing to do."

"It's Halloween. We could go to the cemetery and pay our respects," Severus said in a somber tone.

Sirius didn't have to ask which cemetery or who they would see. Instead he nodded. "All right, let's see if we can manage that."

It turned out that they could. They found themselves in front of the headstones for James and Lily. They knew that they weren't the real thing, but it didn't matter. They were there and for a few moments, they could feel connected to their past.

"It wasn't your fault," Severus said softly.

"Of course it was. I should have been the Secret Keeper," Sirius insisted.

"He would have found a way regardless. It was only a matter of time, because they couldn't stay inside that house forever." Severus sighed. "I hate prophecies."

"I had homicidal dark wizards," Sirius replied.

"Those, too." Severus hesitated and then put a hand on Sirius' should and squeezed gently. "It was still not your fault. Lily would tell you to stop being ridiculous and snap out of it."

"She would, wouldn't she? She'd be less polite too," Sirius said, chuckling. "Do you think they are in heaven?"

Severus nodded. "They were too young to be anywhere else. Sometimes I forget that they were so young, barely out of school."

"It's not fair," Sirius said.

"Nothing about war is ever fair," Severus said with a sigh. "We should go."

"Yeah, we don't want to miss EastEnders," Sirius said with a tiny smile.

"Merlin, not that again," Severus said, but he smiled. He knew that they'd end up watching it, before finding some strange Halloween film to confuse Sirius. He was hoping for Hocus Pocus.

***

Severus hated November. It was a month with no holidays, with students getting ready for exams, but also thinking about the holidays. None of that existed here. 

On the third, they decided that they should celebrate Siriu's birthday. They tried to think of foods and cakes they wanted, but nothing came. Instead on the morning of his birthday, they found all the ingredient for a cake.

"Are we truly doing this?" Sirius said, staring at the flour and eggs as if they were ready to attack.

"Black, stop being a drama queen. It's baking. Not very different than making potions," he pointed out.

"I sucked at it. Never had the patience," Sirius answered.

"No! I'm shocked. On the other hand, I'm very good. Step aside and watch the master at work." Severus began baking, but kept asking Sirius to help through the process.

"I'm not your assistant," Sirius murmured at a certain point.

"Of course not, pass me the milk for the cream," Severus said.

Sirius dipped his fingers in the flour and flicked them toward Severus, white flour staining the black robes like stars in the night. 

"Did you really do that? Are you ten? No, not ten, because no ten-year-old would do something so childish." Severus waved his hand, murmuring a word and the flour flew in Sirius' direction.

"You… I can't believe… you…"

Severus gave him a smug smile, which in retrospect was a really bad idea, because it started a full on war based on flour and water. By the time they were done, the kitchen was a mess, the cake was ruined and their clothes looked worse than Longbottom's robes after a botched potion.

Always the Gryffindor, Sirius didn't know when to stop and he pinned Severus against the counter while he held a glass of water over his head. "Say I won."

"Once again, I ask: are you ten?" Severus asked without any fear he might have had back in school. He wasn't a child anymore and he knew that he could hold his own. Besides, this was one on one, no friends to back Sirius up. "What are you going to do if I don't, Black?" he asked, lowering his voice in a menacing hiss.

"I-" Sirius grabbed Severus' arm. Their eyes met with the same intensity of when they were alike, bodies tense, muscles ready to spring to action. 

"You?" Severus' arm went around Sirius.

"If you don't, I'll-" Sirius slammed the glass on the counter next to Severus as he moved even closer and crushed their lips together. It was a new different kind of battle for them, neither one surrendering, but silently agreeing to a truce as they pulled back. They kept staring at each other, and Sirius was the first one to break the silence. "Maybe we should have done all along."

There was another long pause before Severus sniggered. "Can you imagine Albus' face if we ended our fights like this?"

Sirius bit his lip, trying not to laugh, but it was a lost cause. "Sweet Merlin, that- School would have been a lot more fun, wouldn't it?"

"Our school years were filled with murders and disappearances while they should have been filled with discoveries and joy," Severus said, sounding like the professor he was. "You know that this won't distract me from baking, right? We're celebrating your birthday."

Sirius smiled. "All right, let's do the fun things… What about later?"

Severus smirked. "You'll just have to wait and see."

***

Sirius didn't have to wait long. Kisses turned into touching, then into sex in less than two weeks. By the end of the month, they moved around each other with ease as if that had always been the case. 

It was only the start of the December when they found themselves decorating the house. There was a big tree in the drawing room. The decorations were a mix of memories from Severus and Sirius. 

"How much do you think it's this place?" Severus asked as he put another decoration on a branch.

"What? The decorations? Definitely this place," Sirius answered as he poured eggnog in two glasses. "Here, have a drink, sit down and take a rest. This house has never been this festive in its existence. We deserve a break."

Severus gave another look at the tree, but then went to the couch. Sirius sat, or more accurately half sprawled on the couch, leaning against Severus. "You only wanted to feel me up." His thoughts were still on his original question. "Us? How much is it because we're stuck here with each other?"

Sirius shrugged. "I'm not the philosophical one of the two, but if you were pulled into my purgatory, my house and we haven't been able to find anyone else even now that we can visit places, it's safe to say that there's something about us that we need fixing. Either that or the Devil doesn't know what true pain is."

Severus snorted. "I doubt. I suppose you make some sense," he said, as he ran his fingers through Sirius' hair. "It's just very confusing, almost too peaceful. I was expecting a lot more wrath and flames of eternal pain with my afterlife."

"What if it's not purgatory? What if it has something to do with the Veil? You said that I went through and no one knows how it works. Maybe that's why we're alone," Sirius said.

"That would explain why you're here, but not why I'm here. How would the veil bring me here?" Severus asked.

"Magic? Anyway, I doubt we'll ever know. We might enjoy the pain free existence." Sirius turned his head and kissed Severus' jaw. "You think too much."

"And you don't think enough. What if this is it? What if we're stuck here forever?" Severus asked.

Sirius shrugged. "I've been in Azkaban. That was much worse. This- I think this is okay. We're learning about each other. You apparently are a great cook. We get to visit places that we couldn't do in life. Do you know that I never had the chance of leaving Britain? Unless you count the occasional battle in Ireland. I've done nothing. I've loved no one."

"That's not true, is it? You loved your friends," Severus pointed out. "I was always jealous of your friendship. Even from the outside, we could tell that it was real."

"And look how well that worked out for us. We didn't trust Remus. Peter betrayed us. Lily and James died. I was stuck in Azkaban." Sirius sighed. "Talking about my life makes me realise how useless it was. You did something with your life at least. Maybe it wasn't the perfect way to go about it, but you _did_ something, while I didn't."

"I'm not sure that my way was that great either. I was stuck in a school with children I disliked immensely, waiting for the Dark Lord to return, so I could pretend to serve him until I died." Severus ran his hand down Sirius' arm. "We can argue on who had it worse or just accept that we both had pretty shitty lives."

"We can certainly agree on that. Do you know that I never knew I liked men? Or … well, boys back then. Thinking back, I think I was a bit jealous. You paid so much attention to Remus. James paid attention to Lily," Sirius said with a little frown. 

"And who were you jealous of?" Severus asked with an amused smile.

"I have no idea," Sirius answered. "James, you, Remus. Definitely not Lily. Lovely girl, but she never did anything for me." He sat up and shifted so he faced Severus. "Do you know what I find interesting? We don't really fight. Everything is less intense here."

"I don't think it's the place, though. I used to think that, but that makes no sense. Why give us the chance to redeem ourselves if we can't truly feel?" Severus had been thinking about this since the fight that had turned into a kiss. "It's the lack of people. We don't have to prove anything. We don't have to compete with anyone. We don't have to pretend."

"We can be ourselves. So this is the us without a war pitting against each other? I like it," Sirius said.

"I think this is us without a school and house rivalries and family history pitting us against each other. I… think I was jealous, too. Of you. You were rich, from a good family, good looks. Everything came easy to do and I had to fight for every scrap of respect." He lulled his head back, sighing. "These revelations would have been a lot more useful when we were in school."

"Youth is wasted on the young. Or experience is useless in the old. Take your pick," Sirius said, laughing. "And this is getting too depressing. We keep thinking about this place, the meaning of life, the meaning of death. Maybe we're not meant to understand it, but instead we should _live_ or as much as we can live in this place."

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Severus asked.

"I think we … should…" Sirius stopped and thought about it. Severus was the one who usually came up with the ideas, but he was quickly running out of them. "We should travel. I've never travelled, you've never travelled. So let's. Let's pack up-"

"The clothes we don't need and all the rest of useless stuff?" Severus asked.

"Yes, let's pack like we're going on a real trip and let's visit the world together. Me and you, we have the whole world to explore and infinity to do it." Sirius kissed Severus gently. "Take a chance with me, Severus."

"You're getting soppy. You're even using my first name."

Sirius grinned at Severus. "I know! Terrible of me." 

"We agree on something then." Severus hinted a smile and nodded. "I don't know about infinity, but I want to see the world with you."

Sirius chuckled. "We can argue about the length of this trip later. Let's go get ready."

***

Severus looked around King's Cross with a frown. The place was empty with just the Hogwarts Express sitting there. "When you said we should see the world, I didn't think we should go back to Hogwarts. That would be a haunted Christmas, filled with too many unpleasant memories."

"Neither did I," Sirius whispered. His voice still sounded loud as it echoed in the empty station. "You know this place. It does things its own way and if we don't get on, we'll be stuck here."

"Forever," Severus said with a sigh. "Very well, let's see why it wants us to go back to school." He gestured toward one of the empty doors. "After you."

"You're lucky that I trust you now." Sirius walked inside the train and they settled in one of the cars. "It's eerie how identical it is."

Severus rolled his eyes. "After everything we've seen, _this_ is what you find eerie."

"I know, but I haven't been on this train since I was eighteen. It's been a long time," Sirius admitted. "How does it feel for you?"

"Like it was a few months ago. Minus the annoying children." The train came alive and started to move. The journey was familiar, at least at the start. They got out of London, travelling north. They both knew that trip would take hours and got ready for the long trek when a bright light blinded them and only seconds later, the train came to a full stop.

"It wants us to get out." Severus reached for his wand, suddenly on guard. He didn't like strange occurrences and this place was behaving differently than the usual. Any change in behavior was suspect.

"We can't fight this, and you know it, so let's just go," Sirius said.

"You've becoming accepting in death," Severus murmured. 

"Or I'm tired of fighting the inevitable," Sirius answered. He walked out in front, ignoring any danger that might arise. When they stepped outside of the train, they found themselves in front of the school gates.

"This isn't possible. The station is-" The light behind them changed and when Severus turned the train had disappeared. "I don't like this. I don't want to be stuck here again."

"I don't think we have much of a choice. We need to see what's waiting for us." Sirius reached for the gates and pushed them open. "Come on, Severus. We're doing this together, remember?"

"If your Gryffindor stupidity gets me killed, I'll kill you myself," Severus muttered.

Sirius grinned. "Pretty sure that you can't kill what's already dead." He waited for Severus to move next to him and then they stepped through the gates and onto the school ground. They made their way toward the castle when a figure appeared in front of them. "Regulus? Is that you?"

Regulus smiled. "It's about time. I've been waiting for you for a long time."

Sirius looked at Severus for a moment, then back to his brother. "Is this-"

"Hogwarts," Regulus said.

"I was going to say 'heaven'," Sirius said with a snort.

"Sweet Salazar, you sound like Severus," Regulus said, chuckling. "And… I suppose that you can say that. It's… a new adventure. It takes many shapes, but today is a special day."

"What day is it?" Severus asked.

"It's Christmas and we were all waiting for you. There's a Welcoming Fest ready at the castle," Regulus said as if that was obvious. "No more questions, Severus. I know you, and we'll be here until Easter if you start. Come, you'll see what I mean."

Sirius and Severus began following Regulus. "Is this a normal reception?" Sirius asked.

"It's different for everyone. I wanted to be here for you. I missed you," Regulus said.

Sirius grabbed his brother's arm, making Regulus stop. "I missed you, too. Severus told me... I was a fool." He pulled his brother into his arms and hugged him tight. "I'm glad you're here."

"Things went they were they were meant to. I made my choice, Sirius. They weren't easy and I've always regretted not trusting you, but we can't change any of that. We do have plenty of time to make up for it. But we'll be late and everyone is waiting."

They started to walk again until they reached the castle and eventually the Great Hall. The room, though was much smaller, with a cozier feeling. "All your friends are here," Regulus said. "James and Lily, Remus and Nymphadora, but she hates the name. She likes Tonks, but we compromised with Dora. Dumbledore is here too. He really wanted to be the one to greet you," Regulus said with a smug smile. "There are other people as well, mostly from the Order. McKinnon, Fenwick."

Severus could see how overwhelmed Sirius was and he didn't want to add to it, but there was one burning question in his mind. "What about Potter? Harry, I mean."

Regulus shook his head. "He managed to destroy all the Horcruxes without dying, at least not permanently. Death is a fickle beast as if you've seen."

Severus nodded. It was the only answer he needed, the one answer that made his sacrifices on earth worth. With that, he let the two brothers walk ahead. He knew that now that people were around, whatever he had with Sirius would end. 

Sirius turned around. "What are you waiting for?"

"Your friends are waiting for you," Severus said.

Sirius laced his fingers with Severus and squeezed. "We're seeing the world together, remember? We'll just do it in a different place."

Severus smiled. "For infinity?"

"Apparently so, and now let's join the Welcoming Feast."


End file.
